Random Things

bits and pieces of my week...


we're trying to sell a car,
the ad produced lots of emails,
a few calls, sudden interest,
the ignition of hopes,
the brakes of 'no thanks',
the new owner still waits to come forward

i had a fleeting thought of how increased contact,
could produce a feeling of importance or popularity,
how someone in the limelight of fanfare,
might forget the fickleness of human desire.

so i prayed for those Christians, well known, who
seek to honor their Creator
as their creation is lauded and accepted.

Maybe this ties in a bit with the speech given by
Daniel Charles, food and agricultural correspondent for National Public Radio,
at graduation at the college i work for,
listen to what he says about authenticity...

"...And you know what? Most of the time, when somebody tells me that they heard me on the radio, the next thing they say is, they can’t actually remember what I was talking about. If we were talking face to face, I think they would remember.

This is what technology does. The radio or the Internet magnifies my voice incredibly, but it also changes the quality of the communication and you completely lose any sense of a personal relationship.
Now think about conversations that happen by means of your favorite screen: Your cell phone or your iPad or whatever. How authentic are those conversations or the relationships that you create through that form of communication? What are those relationships like?

How much of you gets communicated through text messages? To put it another way, how real is the version of the world that you encounter through that screen?

These are tricky questions, and I’m not even going to try to answer them today. I will just leave you with a few ideas to stimulate your own thinking.

I’m part of a church that’s small enough that we’ve never needed an amplifier. We call it House Church, even though we don’t meet in each other’s living rooms anymore. But we stick with the name, in part, I think because we want to act like we’re still meeting in houses.

I think it does make a difference that we don’t speak through loudspeakers. I have a feeling – I can’t prove it – that when we’re talking in our normal voices, the way you would around the dinner table, we’re a little less likely to say things because that’s what we’re expected to say in church. I think we’re a little more likely to say what we really think, to be authentic.

Or think about music. It’s a totally different experience, when someone is standing here singing, or there’s an orchestra playing, compared to when we’re listening to a recording. From a recording, we expect unnatural perfection; there’s no drama, no uncertainty about what might happen next.

I’m not saying stop listening to iPods or the radio. I’m not saying stop going to any church with a microphone and loudspeakers or stop looking up things on your iPad. Technology is amazing and wonderful and useful.
What I am saying is: Don’t use it to replace actual life with something that’s endlessly entertaining and always at our fingertips, but less authentic.

What I wish for you is the same as what my parents wished for me. This authenticity I’m talking about is connected to values that they treasured – values that also are at the heart of the religious tradition that built this college: humility, honesty, community.

Those are values to live by, even today – especially today.
So cook a meal. Have your neighbors over for dinner. In fact, make that dinner a regular tradition. Plant a garden. Make it a community garden. Sing a song. Play an instrument. Paint.  Use that iPad to make your own movie. Build a life that’s true and real."

speech




passing a few Canadian geese on the side of the road,
not too exciting until,
they decide to step into my path,
wanting to avoid a fowl collision
i brake hard and just miss the back end of
an ascending bird above my windshield,
as well as miss his companions who
change course just in time to miss my car wheel

i praise in thankfulness that it is was just
a close encounter


making a doodle picture with a grandson
hanging his rendition of a
super bunny on
my refrigerator door

inspiration for the week...
readings in the gospel of Luke,

this video clip found on Randy Alcorn's blog,
a 77 year old man returns to witness the
ongoing harvest of seeds he sowed as a missionary
years earlier
The Peace Child Still Lives!

praying on the courthouse lawn
of my hometown
with other believers on
National Day of Prayer

i am grateful for God's goodness and faithfulness.

get ready, get set, it's a new week
there are works prepared for us to do,
people to love on and pray for
and always His presence to comfort,
teach, forgive, and provide...